Maybe someone can help me understand this - does this mean this is a condo unit and it is inhabited by a rent-controlled tenant? I've never heard of such a thing. Renting/subletting, I can understand, but how would the rent control laws apply to a condo unit? Maybe I'm just clueless, but it does sound weird.

On the other hand, kudos to the tenant. Your apartment costs as much as my phone!

I have no problem with the rent-controlled $90 tenant, good for them! If they have that kind of rent, they are probably elderly and have been there for many decades. I hope they are able to live there happily and healthily for as long as they want to. I'm sure anyone complaining about unfairness would jump at that deal if they could get it, but that era has passed. These deals are gradually disappearing. Let's not be churlish about those who still have them.

My rent stabilized building converted to co-ops under a non-eviction plan. Does this mean I can keep my apartment indefinitely?

Yes, according to the NYS Attorney General's office, under an non-eviction conversion plan an outside purchaser of an occupied apartment may not evict you. You may continue in occupancy as a rent-stabilized or rent-controlled tenant, paying rent to the outside purchaser or the sponsor, who must provide all the services required under applicable laws.

These market raters always get so mad when they see someone else with a rent controlled or stabilized apartment, yet I don't hear any complaints about the people who bought a townhouse from the city for a dollar that are today worth millions. Somehow the people who bought properties on the cheap are smart, but the people who managed to get a rent controlled apartment are looked down upon. That says a lot about the corrupt and twisted values people have developed in our vulture capitalist society: owners and bosses and billionaires are admired, while renters and workers and poor people are scorned. The people who have rent controlled and stabilized leases and kept them all these years are smart too, just like the guy on the plane who got the same seat for $99 that you paid $999 for. You're just jealous because it's not you.

Giovanni - Isn't the idea of rent control that it is supposed to ensure rents are reasonable for tenants that otherwise wouldn't be able afford to live in the neighborhood / city? If that is, in fact, the goal, wouldn't it be more effective to have a reasonable level for this tenant (and others like them) so that more potential tenants who can't afford rents be able to get a benefit? My concern isn't from a place of jealousy. In fact, it's from a place of concern that a system that is meant to benefit many is actually only benefiting a few. Nice job trying to draw false parallels to fit your narrative, though.

Giovanni is correct, our society since Reagan days has been about putting the rich on a pedestal and the poor under our collective heels. Libertarian and right wing capitalist have found the perfect deflection from the scam they are pulling on the rest of us, as long we have someone below us to pee on we put with the rich peeing on us. #45 and crew use immigrants as the whipping boy for loss of blue collar jobs when it is actually the wealthy industrialist that have moved their jobs overseas and broke the back of most worker unions. Sure that person (if real) pays $90 per month for rent but every other expense to live has soared.

Guessing that whoever this lucky person is, they lived in that space starting long ago, and went through many tough years when NYC was on the financial skids, putting up with the dirt, crime, crumbling transit system, junkies, abandoned buildings, and all the other myriad woes that beset NY and the EV starting in the 1960s, a set of woes that, I'm also guessing, many of the "how dare this be allowed, it's not fair" crowd would have fled from in terror, if they'd even come here at all. Live long and prosper, whoever you are, and I hope you enjoy your (totally unrenovated so it's not like you're living in the Taj Mahal, it's probably pretty beat hey, but it's yours) apartment for many more years to come.

@1:49PM Their name is "anonymous" and they post here all the time. They suck up to the developers and big chain stores and dump on the people who prefer mom and pop stores. They argue against any rent protection for working class people or small stores, and think the free market will solve any problem. They dont seem to understand that capitalism and the free market have been hijacked by the ultra-rich,who control REBNY and all levels of government. They say if people here don't like the change being brought onto this neighborhood by billionaire developers and billion dollar companies that we longtime residents should move. The majority of readers here are not sucking up to the billionaire class and their love of hyper-gentrification, but "anonymous" sure seems to love them.

Giovanni isn't drawing any false parallels, even though he can't quite see through his own foggy thinking. Ultimately, he's right though: "You're just jealous because it's not you." Keep that thought on the tip of your tongue the next time you feel like disparaging politician/celebrity/real estate tycoon Ex. A for perceived offense against humanity Ex. B.

The system in no way, shape or form was ever meant to benefit the many at the expense of the few, not in Babylon on the Euphrates or in Babylon on the Hudson. The sooner you dispense with this pretty little lie, the better.

So stop fronting - given the choice, you'd choose billionaire status in a hot second, and all the slavish adoration that comes with it. 'Oh no, not me. I'd give it all away and take up my begging bowl and wander the hills.' Right. Get going then.

Rent regulation started in the 1940s. There are very few rent controlled apts in Nyc, compared to rent stabilized....rent controlled apts are generally held by very old rent ants that have lived there for decades.

See, anonymous proved Giovanni's point. Anonymous loves Billionaires over ordinary people, which is why she reads EV Grieve religiously, just to mock the ones she despises. If you don't like it, go back to Trump Tower.

There was a time when cities like New York benefitted greatly by encouraging working families live in its neighborhood's, create a stability, a level tax base, and future generations to build upon. Housing was built for the post WW2 America and it's new larger and growing middle class. Some got wealthy as always by creating companies, products and services which most of society found beneficial and all boats rose with the money generated. Today's NYC is all about "market rate" like that's some magic natural way of the world, dog eat dog, only the strong deserve to survive. A successful society is engineered by government and other institutions so that the most get to share in the rewards of their work and laws, regulations etc... are the only way to keep law of the jungle from taking over. Think of the New Deal born from the Great Depression and the social institutions which we all still benefit from to this day. Look at Sty Town and what it meant for returning GI's from that war. The opportunity those families were giving and what those families gave back to our city and society. When power and money are consolidated all but a few will really benefit. Monopolies are bad for everyone but those that own them, they suffocate innovation, provide less opportunity and diversity. The problem is most Americans seem to think greed is good, sharing a common wealth is bad although they all want some form of welfare and social benefit just don't call it "welfare". Houston will be handed out Billions from the collected taxes of all Americans, that's what shared wealth is for. Housing the poor and elderly is somehow consider a bad thing while people who insist on living in land at risk for natural disasters is perfectly fine.

I read everything and still don't get it. (I am a working class person living pay check to paycheck in the outer outer outer boroughs of Brooklyn.) Though I love the EV.

let me try to explain it as I understand it:So there's not a building owner? There are separate apartment owners? And one of them owns this unit, but the rent controlled tenant pays rent to the *apartment owner*? When did the apartments have owners and not just a building landlord. Sorry, I'm just a very very regular person who does not understand this.

@Gojira 1:58pm: THANK YOU for what you said and how clearly you said it!

Indeed, everyone I know who is still rent controlled is (a) elderly and (b) has lived here through decades when none of today's fine young people would have dared walk the streets of these neighborhoods. Today's fine young people can't even begin to IMAGINE what it was like, and I seriously doubt they'd have stuck it out for years, much less half a century. We are talking hell, high water, blackouts, arson, drug dealers fighting for turf, prostitutes, and more - plus the serious likelihood of being mugged on your way home or inside your building.

Also, fine young people, we're mostly talking about walkup buildings. I have a friend who lives in a rent controlled apartment: moved in circa 1964, has tub in kitchen, toilet in water closet, one tiny sink serves as both kitchen/bathroom sink, and the place is up many SERIOUSLY skewed flights of stairs. (And no, my friend can't afford to move, being now age mid-70's and on a fixed income. And FWIW, no, my friend doesn't own a car or a second home elsewhere, either.)

Gojira, I join you in saying to the rent controlled tenant described in this EV Grieve write-up: "Live long & prosper!"

This is something that can happen when a building with rent controlled and/or stabilized tenants gets converted to co ops - afbp posted the relevant info near the start of the thread. People in those apartments can choose to stay and cannot be evicted. Contrary to what Anon @11:38 wrote, this is due to rent regulation laws.

As others have suggested, a rent of $90 probably means that the tenancy began early 60s-ish. My neighbor on Eldridge was paying $51 for her one bedroom apt under rent control when she moved out last year, and had been living there since 1962. Bathtub was in the kitchen and the toilet outside on the landing. It has since been somehow converted to a two-bed with the tiniest of communal space with a rent of $2,595.

The building was converted to a coop on a non eviction basis and this tenant did not choose to purchase and still falls under the rent control law. Pretty common. The original sponsor is selling the unit but the law requires that tenant cannot be evicted and must follow the rent control law. By the way, the price is market price. I am a re broker and sold in the building. And as far as the restaurant, the coop does not own the commercial space. The residential coop was broken off from the storefront and converted separately.

My favorite argument is if it weren't for all the RS and RC apartments, rents would be lower. Why are "we" subsidizing these people, ask the bitter market rate rich people.

That's where I come in and note: in the past 10 years, there are 20,000 new market rate units on the market, which is the same as if 20,000 RS apartments were taken out of stabilization. What's happened with the glut of new units on the market?? By the logic of the envious RS/RC apartment haters, 20,000 new units should equal a decrease in rents? Reality: rents have continued to rise. So the next time someone tells you that if all RS/RC apartments were made market rate, rents would decrease, tell them that's a pipe dream.

The reason rent stabilization is still in place is that there is and has been a chronic emergency housing shortage in New York City, and no end in sight. If there were a housing surplus, it's likely the people calling for an end to rent stabilization—and claiming that rents would come down after the initial shakedown—would have a better case for ending it.

(Thank you, 4:49 PM, for pointing out that more market-rate housing doesn't mean an end to homelessness. If my rent were suddenly jacked up to market rate, I'd suddenly be homeless—a chilling thought.)

@anon 11:32 - The landlord isn't losing money. This is one case when the free market actually works. When the sponsor bought the building, the presence of rent-regulated tenants was figured into the purchase price. Similarly, it will now be sold cheaply because the buyer is waiting for the current tenant to die, so that ties up the buyer's money for a while. They hope to make money (that's why they're "investors"), but expect to not do it right away. (Of course they may then proceed to harass the tenant, but that's another matter.)

Sad. I think if there is anyone living in the building who reads this that they should check to see if the person is all right. They have no right to harass them. There are so many older people in the neighborhood that are alienated, scared and being harassed. City council member and CB 3 have failed senior citizens, Latinos and rent stabilized tenants. If there is someone listening, please direct this person to the Cooper Square Committee (Brandon Kielbasa).

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